Flying Zajicek shows V means victory

Leipheimer secures Gila title thanks to Mellow mates

Phil Zajicek (Fly V Australia) captured the biggest victory in his cycling
career, breaking away from seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong
(Mellow Johnny's) and his teammate Levi Leipheimer at top the infamous Gila
Monster ascent. The Boulder native received a congratulatory hand shake from
Astana team director Johan Bruyneel after beating his riders in their specialty:
climbing. Zajicek won the final stage with his proud parents and wife amongst
the spectators - a podium photo that will no doubt hang on the wall for life.

"This is unbelievable," said Zajicek, whose wife watched the stage from SRAM
follow car and witnessed the race unravel. "This is the best day on the bike
ever, the best. It was so fast from the start and then [Chris] Horner was absolutely
lighting it up, just flying.

"I've been working so hard on my climbing and everything just came together,"
he added. "I knew Levi wanted to give Lance the win and he went so fast into
the last kilometre. I just had to follow and give it everything I had with 200
metres to go."

Leipheimer's commanding victory in the SRAM Tour of the Gila's general classification
is a good indication that he will arrive to the upcoming Giro d'Italia in top
condition. Armstrong moved into a well-deserved second place after a weeks worth
of endless domestique duties. Zajicek's stage win, combined with a stellar fourth
place in the stage three time trial, earned him the third spot on the overall
podium.

"Its always nice to win no matter what race it is," Leipheimer said. "There
is no easy race. I won the overall, two stages and I set the course record and
I think that is something to be proud of. I think of all the great time triallist
who won it over the years. This is one of the more prestigious races in American
history."

Team Bissell won the best overall team general classification based on the
times of the three highest placed riders from each stage. "As long as we had
good climbs on the first day and today we were good," said Bissell rider Ben
Jacques-Maynes. "Obviously the time trial shakes out real nicely for us. We
have a good time trial team. It wasn't a goal coming in, but it stuck out as
a goal after the first couple of stages. We had five guys with really good rides
today so we are happy."

Domestique underdog beat Grand Tour contenders

A group of six riders made it to the base of the final and most notorious climb
of the Tour of the Gila. After pulling the break away for nearly the entire
last half of the professional men's 168-kilometre road race Chris Horner (Mellow
Johnny's) started to show signs of distress mid-way up the final climb. But
he kept coming back for more.

He kept the pressure on while Leipheimer, Armstrong, Zajicek and Chad Beyer
(Team B) planed their individual bids for victory. Two-time event winner Burke
Swindlehurst hung on to the front group for as long as possible, but began to
show signs of weakness over the last few rollers.

"I felt like I didn't have too much acceleration in my legs today," Swindlehurst
said. "I focused on trying to diesel it all day and on the last climb my legs
just locked up on me."

Horner put forth one last effort toward setting up Armstrong for victory and
Leipheimer took over the driving. Several coy attacks came from Beyer but no
move was strong enough to hold off Leiphiemer's consistent speed up the climb.

Zajicek sandwiched himself between Leipheimer and Armstrong and patiently waited
for one of his two competitors to make the first move. The pair attacked and
Zajicek responded, pouncing on the pair and pulling out a 12 second margin at
the line. The defeated team-mates shook hands to the end of a successful week
and crossed the finish line together. Beyer, Horner and Swindlehurst rolled
through several seconds apart respectively.

"This is one of the hardest road races in North America," Zajicek said. "It
also comes at the end of five days of really hard racing."

The chase group included two riders Baldwin and White who dangled between the
leaders and a second five-man chase group, Zirbel, Stalder, Darren Lill (Team
Type 1), Davide Frattini and Anthony Colby (Colavita-Sutter Home).

Horner dies a thousand deaths…but keeps on pushing

The tired men's field lined up in the early morning to start what is arguably
known as the toughest stage. Three significant climbs played a big role in the
outcome of the stage, where tactics were key but attrition was everything. An
early move of 16 riders set sail on the long winding descent out of SIlver City.

An unfortunate crash on the descent out of town saw Nydam air lifted to the
Thompson Hospital in El Paso. Nydam's accident was one of many that included
Cameron Evans (OUCH-MAXXIS), Matt Cooke (Ride Clean) and World Pursuit Champion
Taylor Phinney (Trek-Livestrong). The break away reluctantly continued on to
gain more than a three minute lead, 50 kilometres into the race.

"He reached down to grab his water bottle and his foot unclipped," said Jacques-Maynes,
who was descending behind Nydam at 70 km/h when he crashed. "I really didn't
want to race after I saw that. I wanted to pull over and call it a day. I never
want to see something like that happen in a bike race, especially such a good
guy like Scott."

The large front group reached the first of three climbs where pain on some
of their faces began to show through. Stronger climbers in the bunch set a fast
tempo and several riders fell off pace before they reached the top. The first
sign that super domestique Horner was on the hunt to catch the break was seen
when the break away made its way through the turnaround and back out toward
the Copperas Vista climb of the Gila Cliff Dwellings.

The chasing peloton started the demanding 11-kilometre climb in tact but when
Horner was through setting tempo, there were only six survivors left. The original
members of the chase group include Horner with Leipheimer and Armstrong in tow,
Zajicek, Beyer and Swindlehurst along with Tom Zirbel (Bissell), Florian Stalder
(Team B), Peter Stetina (Garmin-Holowekso Partners-Felt), Chris Baldwin (Rock
Racing). As the pace quickened Baldwin, Zirbel and Statina fell off pace and
never recovered back to the lead group.

The six climbing specialists caught remnants of the initial 16-man break away
before cresting the top. White managed to hang on the longest but he too fell
off the leading pace shortly after. "That climb out of the Cliff Dwellings was
so painful and Horner would not let up," Zajicek said. "I was hurting so bad
there. I just knew I had to make it to the top of that one because that was
the most important climb of the stage."

Horner continued to drive the pace on the front down the descent and up the
next climb. The most dedicated domestique rider in America.

Armstrong conquers the Gila Monster and the overall

Kristin Armstrong (Cervelo) proved she is in a class of her own when it
comes to climbing. The Boise, Idaho native set a tempo on the final ascent
into Pinos Altos until she was alone and headed for victory. Catherine
Cheatley (Colavita-Sutter Home) won the small sprint for second place and
Alison Powers (Team Type 1) took third.

"At the base of the climb we were two and half minutes back from the break
and I just set my own pace up the climb," Armstrong said. "I didn't have
to work today at all."

Armstrong won the overall title by nearly five minutes ahead of second
placed Powers and third placed Katheryn Mattis (Webcor-Builders). "This
was a successful Tour of the Gila for me," said Armstrong. "I'm preparing
for the Tour de l' Aude and now I get to go there and have a whole team
with me. I'm so excited."

The front group behind Armstrong re-shuffled as riders began to settle into
their own rhythm. Mattis set a strong tempo on the uphills and Powers, a
former downhill skier, blazed through the short winding descents. A group
of 15 sprinted to the finish line at the top.

The break almost made it to the top of the Gila Monster

A break formed early into the women's 115-kilometre road race. Rebecca
Much (Webcor-Builders), Rachel Heal (Colavita-Sutter Home, Nicole Evans
(Value Act Capital) and Hillary Billington (Lip Smackers) worked well
together gaining a maximum of six minutes making Much the virtual leader
on the road.

"I was okay with the break because I was up by three and a half minutes,"
Armstrong said. "I was happy that I could be a little bit more defensive
today. I sat back because I knew I was going to go hard up that climb.
There were only seconds that separated second place through sixth place in
the overall. That is where the race was on."

Armstrong's mellow presence back in the field sent a signal to the other
teams that she was not interested in bringing the break back. Chances were
that Armstrong would reduce the time to Much on the last climb but riders
wanting to hold their GC positions needed to start working together to
reduce the hefty time margin.

" I was definitely nervous when the break got up to six minutes," said
Powers. "But after that everyone started to help out and work at the front
to try and get that down."

Colavita-Sutter Home, Value Act Capital and Alison did the majority of the
work to reduce the time to just over two minutes at the base of the climb.
The break splintered on the climb and Armstrong caught the last rider,
Evans mid-way up the climb. Evans rode in second place for
the majority of the climb before being caught by the bunch sprint within
the final kilometre.